First off, our title. The ubiquitous che! Che can come at the beginning or the end of a sentence as a simple interjection, or to avoid saying a person’s name. It’s like calling them “mate” or “dude.” But it is often used as a filler, a meaningless interjection just thrown in there.

The second most important aspect of Argentine Spanish to learn before you get here is the pronunciation of the ll (as in calle) and y (as in yo). Typically, they are both pronounced like a y in other Spanish dialects.

Standard Pronunciation

calle -street (click here to download the mp3 file and listen to the standard pronunciation)

yo – the pronoun I (click here to download the mp3 file and listen to the standard pronunciation)

The pronunciation of both the ll and the y change depending on which part of the country the speaker is from. We’ll look at how the porteños pronounce them, since most people will be visiting Buenos Aires and this pronunciation is the one that confuses.

So you’ve been listening to your Spanish lessons as you drive to work or as you exercise at the gym. You practice rolling your r’s in the mirror every morning. You’ve stuck stick-it notes on the items in your house to help build your vocabulary. As you open the refrigerator, you mouth out the items: leche, agua, huevos, queso, jamon, yogur, uvas, manzanas. You make it a point to say “Hola” and “gracias” to your Latino neighbors. And then you land in Buenos Aires and realize they don’t speak Spanish here.

It’s Castellano, or Rioplatense Spanish, a dialect of Spanish spoken in the areas of the River Plate, and it can be quite different. Mostly the pronunciation is different, but there are different words too. To me, Castellano has an Italian rhythm with a Brazilian Portuguese softness. Overly romanticized? That’s very possible, after all, we are talking about language, which ranks up there in my top three favorite topics.

So how can you prepare? Maybe we can help.

Vos vs Tú

In most Spanish-speaking countries, the pronoun for you (informal) is tú. In Argentina, they use vos. Whether the vos comes from Brazil’s você or from Spain’s vosotros isn’t clear, but don’t worry if you use tú, Argentines will still understand you. You only need to know that when they use vos, they’re talking to you.

Conjugating with Vos

It would be much easier if all one had to do to speak Castellano were change the túto vos. But as luck would have it, the verbs are also different. For example, in most Spanish-speaking countries to ask where a person is from you would say “¿De donde eres tu?” In Castellano it’s “¿De donde sos vos?” Notice that the two verbs–eres and sos–are completely different.

There aren’t too many verbs that change so drastically. In most cases, it’s the accent and maybe a missing vowel that accounts for the difference between tú verb forms and vos verb forms. Actually, the vos verb forms are easier. Drop the final -r on the verb, add an -s, and put the accent on the final syllable. Simple.

VerbVos Tú

ser (to be) vos sos tú eres

estar (to be) vos estás tú estás

tener (to have) vos tenés tú tienes

querer (to want) vos querés tú quieres

venir (to come) vos venís tú vienes

decir (to say) vos decís tú dices

pensar (to think) vos pensás tú piensas

Castellano a los Pedos

In our next blog post will cover the major pronunciation differences, but to have a little fun before getting serious again, let’s talk about the colloquialisms.

Argentines have a very particular slang and they absolutely love to use it. Slang makes for some hilarious misunderstandings and that’s half the fun of learning another language.

For example, a friend of mine got a new job. I called her after her first day to see how it went. She said it was fine, she spent the entire day al pedo. Pedo literally means fart. I had an image of my friend sitting at her new desk with nothing to do and farting all day. People would walk in and think, “boy, the new girl really stinks” or “I wonder what she had for dinner last night.”

She’s a close friend, so felt I could ask her if her job was so dull that she spent the day forcing farts out to make the time pass faster. She explained that al pedo means something was a waste of time or effort. I still kind of like the image of her there in her new job farting away. In the end, I wasn’t that far off.

Other Pedo Expressions

ni en pedo – no way
“Hey, want to come with me to the laundromat?”
“Ni en pedo.”

de pedo – by chance
“So how did a guy like that get a girl like her?”
“De pedo.”

a los pedos – very fast (literally it means to the farts which gives a nice visual)
“He’s a crazy driver.”
“Siempre a los pedos.”

cagar a pedos – to lecture or chew out (literally it means to shit farts, another visual but not so nice)
“Did he yell at you when he fired you for farting all day?”
“Si, me cago a pedos.”

al pedo – something that is a waste of time, money or effort
“That guy just doesn’t get that you aren’t into him. What’s up with all the gifts?”
“Si, el está al pedo.”